After Marcus Cooper’s mind-boggling premature touchdown celebration on a blocked field-goal return cost the Bears four points Sunday, plenty of fans would have been happy if coach John Fox had sent Cooper home instead of playing him in the second half. Or sent him packing altogether. The echo around...

President Donald Trump is up and tweeting, and his target is the NFL. Trump says "ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected." He also says that booing at the Dallas game Monday night when the team dropped...

There will be greater challenges for the Cubs next month, but they wasted little time establishing their desire to reach the next stage. "We like the bigger moment," manager Joe Maddon said two hours before the Cubs scored four runs in the top of the first inning and saw left-hander Jon Lester...

White Sox

White Sox catcher Rob Brantly posed for a photo with the serviceman being honored Monday night in the middle of the game against the Angels at Guaranteed Rate Field, then took hold of his hand and raised it up to the crowd. When the duo spoke of the moment afterward, they both were emotional. The...

The Tribune's Chris Kuc answers readers' questions about White Sox manager Rick Renteria's contract, the 2018 draft, and the future of the rotation. Is Rick Renteria going to get a new contract after the end of his current one? I honestly don't know how long his current one has left. – @ithastobeworse...

Avisail Garcia entered Monday second in baseball with a .331 batting average, behind only American League MVP candidate Jose Altuve's .348. Before a 4-2 victory over the Angels at Guaranteed Rate Field, Garcia ranked 28th in the majors with an .883 OPS and 39th with 3.6 WAR, according to FanGraphs....

Bulls

One day last week, as I walked toward the Advocate Center for the Doug Collins news conference, Lauri Markkanen stood alone along Wood Street waiting for an Uber. A white pickup truck pulled over in front of Markkanen, but it wasn't his driver. It was a Bulls fan — a very excited Bulls fan who...

Zach LaVine created headlines during the Summer League in July when he said he planned to return from his February left ACL tear by the Oct. 19 season opener. While declining to put a timeline on LaVine's return, executive vice president John Paxson said "that's a pretty safe bet" to rule LaVine...

Blackhawks

It's a fool's errand to read too much into line combinations during training camp, especially those from notorious line blender Joel Quenneville. But preseason workouts can offer a glimpse into which players might work well together should Quenneville decide to put them on the same line once the...

Last season, Erik Gustafsson waited for a phone call that never came. After playing 41 games with the Hawks in 2015-16, Gustafsson figured he would get his another shot in the NHL at some point. But for the entire season, Gustafsson skated away in Rockford as he watched other young defensemen,...

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville decided to give starting goaltender Corey Crawford the chance to start a road game this preseason, and while it wasn’t the best start for Crawford, he recovered in a Hawks 4-2 loss to the Bruins. Crawford finished with 19 saves in his second start of the preseason....

College sports

Illinois coach Lovie Smith, who spent 11 seasons as an NFL head coach, said Monday he was disappointed in President Donald Trump’s insults launched Friday against NFL players who protest during the national anthem to bring attention to racial injustices. “There are guys taking a stand against (things...

High school sports

Ahead of Week 6 of the Chicago-area high school football season, the Chicago Tribune’s Mike Clark and The Cube’s Jim McAteer recapped the highlights of Week 5 and what they are looking forward to in the upcoming week’s slate of games. For more high school football, check out Mike Clark's Week 6...

The Chicago Tribune suburban sports department has teamed up with The Cube to present the rankings of the top 20 high school football teams in the Chicago area. See last week's rankings here. With records and previous rankings: 1. Lincoln-Way East 5-0 (1) Last week: Defeated Lincoln-Way Central...

Most read sports stories this hour

The Chicago Cubs will try to clinch their second consecutive National League Central title outright Tuesday night without second baseman Javier Baez and shortstop Addison Russell in the starting lineup against the St. Louis Cardinals at hot Busch Stadium. Baez suffered a right knee bruise in the...

The Cubs promise the new premier clubs under construction at Wrigley Field will allow some fans to "experience the magic of Cubs baseball and Wrigley Field in a whole new way." Fans purchasing season tickets for the clubs will certainly have to dip into their pocketbooks in a whole new way. Prices...

The Bears have had their hands full in September trying to slow some of the league’s best quarterbacks. Thursday’s trip into Lambeau Field will mark the fourth consecutive game in which the Bears will play against a starting quarterback drafted in the first round. The quartet of Matt Ryan, Jameis...

In one of the biggest crackdowns on the corrupting role of money in college basketball, 10 men — including a top Adidas executive and four assistant coaches — were charged Tuesday with using bribes to influence star athletes' choice of schools, shoe sponsors, agents, financial advisers, even tailors....

It was a little over two years ago that Cubs manager Joe Maddon declared war on the Cardinals in a classic rant after they allegedly threw at Anthony Rizzo in a game at Wrigley Field. "We don't start stuff, but we will stop stuff," Maddon said. That was the beginning of the new era of the Cubs-Cardinals...

The Bulls began training camp with double practice sessions Tuesday. And after the first one, the newly signed Nikola Mirotic focused on numbers. Not contract numbers. Weightier ones. Mirotic said he now weighs 260 pounds, up from the 237 at which he finished last season. It's all part of the fourth-year...

President Donald Trump's criticism of players who kneel during the national anthem sparked angry protests around the National Football League Sunday, as about 200 players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance. A week ago, just six players protested. Most NFL players on Sunday locked arms...

With a short week and a Thursday night game looming at Lambeau Field against the Packers, the Bears haven't had the usual time to savor Sunday's 23-17 overtime upset of the Steelers. John Fox's team was back at practice Tuesday, cramming a long day of preparation in at Halas Hall. Here's what we...

After Marcus Cooper’s mind-boggling premature touchdown celebration on a blocked field-goal return cost the Bears four points Sunday, plenty of fans would have been happy if coach John Fox had sent Cooper home instead of playing him in the second half. Or sent him packing altogether. The echo around...

It's a fool's errand to read too much into line combinations during training camp, especially those from notorious line blender Joel Quenneville. But preseason workouts can offer a glimpse into which players might work well together should Quenneville decide to put them on the same line once the...

White Sox right-handers James Shields and Lucas Giolito will not make another start for the team this year. Sox manager Rick Renteria said the organization decided to shut Giolito down because he had reached an innings limit after pitching 128 2/3 innings with Triple-A Charlotte and 45 1/3 innings...

It was a construction site, so someone tried to hand Rocky Wirtz an orange vest and white hard hat, which the Blackhawks Chairman politely declined. "I'm not going to sue myself if I get hurt," Wirtz said to no one in particular as he headed toward the entrance for a tour of the nearly-completed...

10 thoughts after the Chicago Bears wore down the Pittsburgh Steelers en route to a 23-17 victory in overtime Sunday afternoon in the hottest game played at Soldier Field since at least 1982. 1. Jordan Howard finally got rolling and was a huge part of the win as he carried the ball 23 times for...

There will be greater challenges for the Cubs next month, but they wasted little time establishing their desire to reach the next stage. "We like the bigger moment," manager Joe Maddon said two hours before the Cubs scored four runs in the top of the first inning and saw left-hander Jon Lester...

The Tribune's Chris Kuc answers readers' questions about White Sox manager Rick Renteria's contract, the 2018 draft, and the future of the rotation. Is Rick Renteria going to get a new contract after the end of his current one? I honestly don't know how long his current one has left. – @ithastobeworse...

And then there were no Alphas. Three months after trading Jimmy Butler and waiving Rajon Rondo, the Bulls reached agreement on a buyout with Dwyane Wade on Sunday night, the eve of training camp. A source said Wade gave up roughly $8 million to $9 million of the $23.8 million he stood to make after...

Zach LaVine created headlines during the Summer League in July when he said he planned to return from his February left ACL tear by the Oct. 19 season opener. While declining to put a timeline on LaVine's return, executive vice president John Paxson said "that's a pretty safe bet" to rule LaVine...

For at least one more day, Dwyane Wade's $38.5 million for one season of work hung over the Bulls as they began training camp on Monday with media day activities. But by the start of Tuesday's double practice sessions, Wade's brief tenure will be in the past for reasons beyond the fact the Bulls...

President Donald Trump is indulging in his favorite kind of drama — personal, aggressive, culturally volatile and entirely of his own making. And his feud with the NFL shows no signs of abating, with the president tweeting early Monday morning: "The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race....

President Donald Trump is up and tweeting, and his target is the NFL. Trump says "ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected." He also says that booing at the Dallas game Monday night when the team dropped...

At a Friday night rally in Alabama, President Donald Trump gave the NFL no choice but to respond after he insulted protesting NFL players as "sons of bitches" and called for NFL owners to fire players who protest during the national anthem. Put on the spot, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell released...

Before last weekend, the number of NFL players protesting during "The Star-Spangled Banner" was small, sometimes just one. Most were African-American. The first was former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began taking a knee during the anthem last season to protest recent police...